Jay Honeck wrote:
...refused to fly with someone you felt was not entirely safe? (With that
person acting as PIC, not as a passenger in your own plane.)

No but I would have if I know what I know now. At the time I
had solo'd and nothing else.

I was living in Germany at the time and a friend of a friend had
a pilots license who invited us to go flying near the Austrian
Alps and Salzburg. Some of the things he did that were stupid....


1. he fueled the plane himself, he never checked fuel for contaminatino
or water.

2. Didn't have a checklist but while lined up he found it. He didn't
use it much if at all.

3. His radio calls were attrocious.

4. I dont' think he ever concerned himself with Weight and balance
despite going to high altitudes with 3 males in a 172SP.

5. Landing in Rosenheim (IIRC), from the backseat it looked like
the treetops whizzed by maybe 30 feet below us so he was very low.

6. Going into Salzburg, he had no clue where we were despite having
a Garmin 430.

7. Landing in Salzburg which I'm guessing is a Class C airport,
he had full flaps in on downwind. I'm sure at least one plane had to
really extend the downwind for us.

8. He almost landed short of the numbers despite the
9000 foot runway.

9. He landed short and we then had to taxi a mile to the GA tie downs.

10. flying out of Salzburg, he had no idea on what the clearance meant
and didn't follow it.

11. Flying out of salzburg, Tower gave us a frequency change and he
couldn't remember it (ok, this happens to the best of us).

12. At night in the EU, you have to be on a VFR flight plan and get
the equivalent of VFR flight following. Approach (or whatever you
call it there) said, "Cessna D-xxxxx, ummm, if you are going to
Augsburg, umm, don't you want to turn 90 degrees to the left?"

13. He then proceeded to bust the MUC Class B.

14. The guy needed gased his passengers as he really needed to take
a shower more than once a week.

My friend has since flown with me in California and said I was a much
smoother, stable pilot. during the trip he said that they went up
again with 2 girls (so 4 total) up over the Alps at 13000+ feet
and somehow upon returning almost got into a midair when they were
approaching onto another airplane on final (I'm guessing). He said
they were damn scared at the time.

Looking back, I should have gotten out of the plane when he didn't check
the fuel. Live and learn and gladfully I'm still alive as this guy
is going to be a statistic some day.

Gerald Sylvester